Pharmaceutical companies large and small are racing to develop new drugs to fight cancer, but it will be hard to beat paclitaxel. Derived from the bark of the Pacific yew tree, it is the most widely used chemotherapy agent around, despite the fact that in its current state it is mixed with a toxic solution to make it injectable. These companies are looking not to discover a new drug but to make a proven cancer drug even better.

Company

Drug

Comment

Sonus Pharmaceuticals

Tocosol

Paclitaxel combined with vitamin E to make it more tolerable. In midstage trials. Promising.

Stock quotes are delayed at least 15 minutes for Nasdaq, at least 20 minutes for NYSE/AMEX.
U.S. indexes are delayed at least 15 minutes with the exception of Nasdaq, Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 which are 2 minutes delayed.